"I did not see this as a money-making opportunity,” Stoops said of BurnLounge, a New York City-based business. "I invested because it was a way for my family and me to download music.”

Here's some unsolicited but well-meaning advice for Mr. Stoops. Go to Apple's website and check out this service they've got called iTunes. It's extremely user-friendly, you can download it right onto your computer and within minutes you can be taking music off of your CD's and saving them in all their digital glory. They've also got this whole store you can access and download music, movies, podcasts and TV shows to your heart's content. We're digging the new White Stripes album in these parts but you can find all your own favorites there. Except AC/DC damnit! Other than that, though it's a pretty sound service that isn't, you know, illegal. You owe me one, Bobby.

80-year old Penn State coach Joe Paterno was speaking at a fundraiser in Pittsburgh yesterday when the topic turned to the recent motorcycle accident of former Nittany Lion linebacker Lavar Arrington. The coach opined that it might actually be a good thing for Arrington because it might make him more aware of his own mortality. Paterno's most recent brush with mortality came on the sideline last season when two players barrelled into him on the sideline and broke his leg during a game against Wisconsin. Perhaps that's why he was evasive when asked about his plans following the 2008 season, the last year covered by his current contract.

Paterno has a contract that runs through the 2008 season. He laughed off a question about whether he would seek an extension. He joked that he might lobby Penn State athletic director Tim Curley, who was in the room, for two more years, so he could fire Curley if the AD proved to be too annoying.

Paterno should probably only discuss extensions with his maker at this point in time. He's 80, for one thing, and there's really no way for PSU to get rid of him unless he's ready to retire. And also because apparently State College operates under the rarely seen hierarchy of football coach above athletic director so why bother going through the motions of contract negotiations.

Now that we know A-Rod is into muscular, she-male types for his extracurricular boinking, who are the ideal mistresses for the rest of baseball's stars? Hint: The gal above is one of them, which justifies her being on this page. (Babes Love Baseball)

This just in: Olympic athletes must have two legs constructed of flesh and blood. (Lion In Oil)

Nick Saban has some issues with telling the truth. After denying he would leave the Dolphins for the University of Alabama, Saban did just that and, now, he's in some trouble after reports surfaced that he had improper contacts with recruits in the Miami area. Not that kind of improper, he just spoke with high school players when he was limited to evaluating them and an "exchange of greetings" by NCAA rules.

Saban's conversations with Miami Northwestern High juniors Marcus Fortson and Brandon Washington also could be perceived as more than a ``greeting.''

As reported in Sunday's Herald, Washington, a UM oral commitment, said Saban asked him if ''my heart was in Miami.'' Washington said he answered no. He said there's a good chance he will sign with UM but wants to visit other campuses.

Washington later told canesport.com that Saban ``was talking to me about different things, about coming to the summer camps, to come on an unofficial visit, see how things are in Alabama. He said I'm a great player.''

Jim Harbaugh isn't going out of his way to make friends in his first few months as Stanford's head coach. Back in March he caused a kerfluffle with conference rival USC by saying that Pete Carroll would be leaving Troy after next season and now he's set his sights on the remianing 115 teams. Harbaugh spoke to Glenn Dickey of the San Francisco Examiner and told him that he thinks Stanford sits above the rest of college football.

"College football needs Stanford. We’re looking not for student athletes but scholar-athletes. No other school can carry this banner. The Ivy League schools don’t have enough weight [because of their low athletic level]. Other schools which have good academic reputations have ways to get borderline athletes in and keep them in."

Wow, I'm glad I was sitting down when I read that explosiveness. Can you believe that big-time football schools aren't making it to bowl games because of their reliance on players who can split a double team as easily as they can conjugate verbs in German. I guess I won't go ahead and read Vince Young's dissertation on the architectural history of the Mayan people.

Harbaugh went on to single out one school in particular as a breeding ground for undeserving students pushed through school because they can play football.

"Michigan is a good school and I got a good education there but the athletic department has ways to get borderline guys in and, when they’re in, they steer them to courses in sports communications. They’re adulated when they’re playing, but when they get out, the people who adulated them won’t hire them."

As a Wolverine, I'm preconditioned to be down on the Wisconsin Badgers. But gridder-turned-Marine Jake Wood gets a major pass. (Lion in Oil)

Curt Schilling needs to chill the fuck out. How many people really believed Gary Thorne's lamebrained assertion that Schilling painted his sock red during Game Six of the 2004 ALCS? A few Yankee fans, perhaps, looking for a sliver of joy after six straight losses or several pasty-faced high schoolers that Schilling beat up in the form of some online dwarf but really, Curt, drop the indignation. (38 Pitches)

Joe Posnanski and Bill James talking about players who, for a stroke of luck here and a different stadium there, could've been in the Hall of Fame? Sign me up, even though they forgot about Jimmy Wynn. The Toy Cannon got screwed by the Astrodome and by the 1960's focus on pitching but make him five years younger and stick him in Fenway and he's a first-ballot pick. (The Soul of Baseball)